American long jump great Greg Bell, who had been the oldest living Olympic gold medallist in athletics, has died at the age of 94.

Bell breathed his last on January 25, according to World Athletics which paid tribute to the 1956 Olympic long jump gold medallist.

"World Athletics is deeply saddened to hear that Greg Bell, the 1956 Olympic long jump champion, died on Saturday at the age of 94. He had been the oldest living Olympic gold medallist in athletics," it said.

The Himachal Pradesh government has approved the rollout of the Himachal Pradesh Sadhbhawana Legacy Cases Resolution Scheme, 2025, extending its scope to include cases under non-subsumed enactments.

"Notably, the State Value Added Tax Act, which governs petroleum products like diesel and petrol, remains outside the purview of GST. Under this new scheme, cases related to petroleum products up to the financial year 2017-18 will be addressed, aiming to further reduce the backlog of cases under non-subsumed enactments," as per an official release.

Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu said that the new scheme is expected to resolve approximately 3,500 cases, with an anticipated revenue realization of Rs 10 crore.

Laapataa Ladies, directed by Kiran Rao, has been shortlisted for a Japan Academy Film Prize for the year 2024 in the best international film category.

The Hindi film, which was India's official entry to Oscars 2025, will compete with four other international titles Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, Poor Things by Yorgos Lanthimos, Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest, and Alex Garland’s Civil War in the category, a press release stated on Tuesday.

There was a reason why the British invested in a 65-km railway track from Dibrugarh to Margherita in the early 1880s, less than two decades after Asia’s first oil well was drilled at the nearby Digboi town.

The track helped transport coal, tea, and timber from Margherita and stations en route to the Brahmaputra River port at Dibrugarh. The town developed into the administrative hub of eastern Assam and became a major centre for trade, commerce, and education in the region.

Dibrugarh was one of the highest revenue-collecting centres in India during and after the transfer of power in 1947. However, its graph started dropping a couple of decades later and accelerated after the Assam Agitation of 1979-85 and the United Liberation Front of Asom brand of extremism.

Chinese scientists claim to have developed the world’s first seabed 'radar' capable of detecting high-altitude aircraft. The South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports that this breakthrough could significantly enhance China’s intelligence network and reshape future naval warfare.

At an undisclosed location, an acoustic sensor array positioned on the seabed at a depth of 1,000 metres has reportedly detected and tracked a fixed-wing aircraft flying at an altitude of 5,000 metres. Scientists involved in the project shared these details, as reported by the SCMP on Sunday.

India's mines ministry has earmarked nearly $2 billion to develop its critical minerals sector as the world's fastest-growing major economy aims to secure raw materials such as lithium, according to a source and documents from the ministry.

In 2023, India identified 30 minerals, including lithium, as "critical" for its energy transition efforts and to meet the growing demand from industries and the infrastructure sector.

The country otherwise relies on imports to meet its rising demand.

Out of the proposed funding of Rs 16,300 crore ($1.9 billion) to develop the critical minerals sector, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet is likely to initially approve more than $300 million this week, said the source, who is directly aware of the matter and asked to remain unidentified as the deliberations were not public.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Wednesday (January 29, 2025) morning launched its historic 100th launch from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota. The GSLV-F15 with the NVS-02 satellite lifted off from the spaceport’s second launch pad at 6.23 a.m.

“The first launch of 2025 has been successfully accomplished. The satellite has been placed into the intended orbit,” said ISRO Chairman Dr. V. Narayanan who assumed charge of the space agency earlier this month.

NVS-02, the second satellite in the NVS series, is configured with navigation payload in L1, L5 and S bands in addition to ranging payload in C-band like its predecessor-NVS-01. It is configured on standard I-2K bus platforms with a lift-off mass of 2,250 kg and power handling capability of ~3 kW. It will be placed at 111.75ºE, replacing IRNSS-1E. NVS-02 uses a combination of indigenous and procured atomic clocks for precise time estimation.

India has conferred the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award on Christine Carla Kangaloo, President of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, recognising her outstanding achievements in public affairs and her contributions to enhancing India’s global prestige, the High Commission of India in Trinidad and Tobago announced on Tuesday.

In a post on X, the High Commission stated, “At the Republic Day reception hosted by the High Commission last evening, Christine Carla Kangaloo, ORTT, President of the Republic of Trinidad & Tobago, was honoured with the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award on behalf of the President of India, Droupadi Murmu, by the High Commissioner of India Dr. Pradeep Rajpurohit, for her outstanding achievements in Public Affairs and for fostering the name and prestige of India.”

Kangaloo, an Indo-Trinidadian President, served as the chief guest for the 18th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas Convention held in Bhubaneswar, Odisha, from January 8-10, 2025. She delivered a virtual address that received widespread applause across India and beyond.

In a first for Northeast India, Tripura has pioneered the use of artificial intelligence for greater digital inclusion by adopting state-of-the-art text-to-speech technology under the BHASHINI initiative, government officials said.

The technological integration formally started with a memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between the Department of Information Technology and the Digital India Bhashini Division of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in Agartala on Tuesday.

The MoU is in continuation of the BHASHINI project launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in July 2022 under the National Language Technology Mission. The initiative aims to provide translation services in 22 scheduled Indian languages to break through linguistic barriers and enable people to access digital services smoothly.

Serbian Prime Minister Milos Vucevic has resigned, following nationwide protests over the deadly collapse of a railway station canopy.

He said he had acted "to avoid further complicating things" and so as to "not further raise tensions in society".

Fifteen people died in November when a concrete canopy at a railway station collapsed in the city of Novi Sad. Tens of thousands of people have been regularly taking to the streets since then, demanding accountability for the collapse and protesting against corruption.

In a TV address late on Tuesday, President Aleksandar Vucic said he would decide within the next 10 days on whether to hold parliamentary elections or form a new government.